• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Sometimes it works the other way. We cannot get our teenage daughter to eat anything but junk food half the time and yet she’s far thinner than either of us were as teenagers. Neither of us can understand it.

    • Voran@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Could be something she does is burning energy and you haven’t figured out what.

      I used to wonder why I never gained weight despite eating twice what other people did…I never thought to factor in being extremely active because it was normal for me. I didn’t think brutal martial arts classes or 5k runs counted as being ‘active’. I thought it was normal.

      Granted I wasn’t underweight and didn’t need to gain but I really wanted to look like Zarya from Overwatch

    • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You can be thin eating any type of food. It’s generally just far easier to over-consume junk food, but if she’s not eating too much it won’t inherently lead to weight gain

        • Carnelian@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I assure you that it’s just a matter of your perception. Every study ever performed reveals people have a notoriously bad internal concept of the quantity of their intake, frequently being off by more than double. The problem is even further exacerbated when trying to estimate someone else’s intake

            • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
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              6 months ago

              As a teen I would out eat, in physical quantity, any 2 full grown adults and not gain weight, I was 5’11" @ 125lbs by 16. I could eat several plates of whatever was in front of me, at that time my parents made food, not prepackaged processed crap. Into my 20s I’d sit down and empty a tub of ice cream, not one of them tiny ben & jerrys containers. No weight gain until I hit 28 doing a physical job and went up to 180 lbs of muscle, now I’m 150 ish and can still eat what I want when I want, tho normally I eat to live not live to eat. Calories-in-calories-out, like BMI, is only a part of the whole picture with so many unseen things affecting it, like medicines. And no, being skinny was not an easy ride.

              • Voran@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                It is most definitely not an easy ride. I have had complete stranger come up to me in the street and lecture me about being thin. I wasn’t even underweight. I was normal for my height. Happened recently and I’m way heavier than I used to be and people STILL do it.